It was about 10 am. He was probably around 18 or 19, not chubby but with a little baby fat in his face. He needed money for a bus ticket. I did not have my purse and I told him I had no cash on him. I took a ten dollar bill from my purse and drove by him to give. He was listening to some woman.

What I noticed was he was miserable, probably hungry. I never give anyone a dollar. What can you do with a dollar. I don't know how much of a bus ticket he could get. I hope he could get home with a local bus. I had a brother who had to walk from Atlanta home. After about thirty miles, his shoes and he gave out. He made a collect call home and my dad picked him up.

When I gave the kid the money, he looked unsure but I did see a flicker of relief. He began walking out of the Sam's parking lot toward the main road. This was one time I think my small gift was being used for what the recipient said.

I've met children who have had the yoke of adulthood way too young. A teacher I worked with was giving the what forth to one of those old souls. I can understand she was probably right. I also knew that child had a better understanding of the world than she did. Sometimes right is not true.

Some teachers disliked me because I was too nice to the kids. So be it, the world is a tough place and I have done my share of dishing it out. If I can do something to make someone's life easier, great. I have always hated the slings and arrows of fortune.

My blood sugar has been high the past few days, it is finally coming under control. Yesterday, I ate chopped tomatoes with cottage cheese for one meal and two oscar meyer hotdogs for another one. A few slices of cheese before I went to sleep. I need to lose weight so a day of light meals is good.

I've been blessed. Most of my life I have had great health. It is disturbing to have a disease in which I have to make a choice daily about how long I want to live. I can ignore the problem and have a stroke.

I loved listening to Luther Vandross. He died of a complications of a stroke and diabetes. He said it was his own fault. He did not clean up his diet.

The last couple of months, I have been craving something sugary. Since I have a sugar problem, I have not eaten anything of the kind. I always tell myself I can have something tomorrow. Anyway, Luther Vandross probably had the same cravings. I think those cravings are a symptom of Type 2 diabetes. I had gone through a remission phase which is not quite true since I do not eat sugar.

It goes back to you don't really understand something until you have experienced it. That child I saw this morning. He was having a hard time whether he deserved it or not. The woman who was speaking to him was giving him a little chin music. I could see her disapproval when I gave him the money.

What I thought is we all need help sometimes. There is nothing wrong with a nappy headed young man asking. I hope he got home safely. It looks like he had a book bag and there is a college nearby. I may have wasted my money but if I didn't it was money well spent.

Anyway, I'm getting fired up for another letter to the editor on another topic. I'll publish it here. LOL. Like what we think really matters. I read a hoot this morning. A guy wanting to guarantee freedom to only be a conservative evangelical Christian.

Somehow people don't figure out that making people agree with you is not freedom. For the record, I am a conservative evangelical Christian. I just don't think politics and religion mix well nor do I think any religion has it right. The world has more mystery than answers.

Dance with my Father by Luther Vandross - One day I will figure out how to put a link with a picture. Meanwhile hit the words not the picture.

I'm a coming.

My internet is out. At first, I thought it was due to windy, stormy weather. I have used the wifi at a fast food. You feel a little creepy pulling into a parking place and cruising the web. My dog loves the burger I buy to pay for the use. Tomorrow, I'll be visiting the ATT store. I'll drop the landline and go to a wireless home phone and internet. Not too thrilled. I don't know why. I do all my talking on a cell phone.

The day has been whacked up. My brother has a cold. My two big dogs got into a fight. My sister got aggravated with my mom for having me clean the ear wax out of her ears and not going to the doctor. The horse farm next door started a fire mowing grass under dry conditions. Muffin is avoiding me because it hurt when I removed a tick. Duke is snarling at Loretta and he started the dog fight. Nothing really bad, just plenty to keep everything off kilter.

Big Brother was a big disappointment. For one thing, I tape the Big Brother at night. I already knew Cody was Head of Household. I also know that Donnie won the veto. He came in feeling elated and the other players looked disappointed. Christine looked to have cared less. She is confident of not being nominated at going home. Donnie is my dark horse favorite. After that, I would like Cody to win.

The others are not that likable. Derrick has played rough and only Donnie has seen through him. Victoria is a very weak player who everyone wants to have at the end to get the big prize. Frankie is playing for charity. It's hard to get excited about someone who does not need the money. Nicole would be a good choice. I don't like her attempts to back stab Donnie but she is likable like Cody. Christine is the evil witch. She has coasted with an alliance that has stayed unusually stable. I started disliking her when she back stabbed Nicole.

All of my favorite people have been voted out. Survivor and Big Brother do make you think good guys finish last. If the ones voted out had stayed, I may dislike them now.

I like the difference between this season's contestants and last seasons. Victoria is such a sweet girl. The chink in her armor was when Nicole came back. All three girls were competing for attention from Cody in particular. They are all so young. 

Last year one contestant had bi-polar and another had ADD. Even though they took medications they both behaved in ways that reflected on them poorly. These kids need to be paid more.  

I read a young American Jewish woman's blog about the war between Israel and Hamas. She was stating that this felt like a genuine turning point in Israel's history.

I've been envious of people born into a dogma. I would have loved to have been Catholic, Jewish or even Methodist. Instead, I attended a baptist church as a child. I was baptized then I went to college. It is not the education but the inevitable. I drifted from the belief.

 In high school I went to a David Wilkerson sermon. He predicted the second coming of Christ around 1976. The world was at war and at odds with itself. I debated do I go to college. Christ did not return but my doubts of the existence of God did.

I went through years of agnosticism. I faked religious belief to be saved the hassle of being an unbeliever. Later I became a believer. Just not one to follow dogma. The realization it was not God or Jesus I had a beef with, it was how people manipulated other people with their beliefs.

I've got a developmentally delayed brother and a sister who suffers from a severe mental illness. This changes my view of God. I buy into Eastern religion's belief that these people come into this world to teach the rest of us something and they are advanced souls. Each of these two people have a grace.

The purpose of this post was not to make a record of my religious mindsets. It is more detailed than I can sum here. My thoughts were on the unrest of the world and thankful I don't live in Ferguson, Missouri.

I've often thought they have these incidents in outlying regions of the South. My thought is that the United States has never acknowledged that racism is a problem throughout the United States and the world. Acknowledging the problem in the South was a start. I read about the Philippines. Before 1900,they had a horrible caste system which I am sure is present today. It has to be to have been so complex.

Us versus them. So many of the world's problems link to this. The world is an ugly place to live. I am thankful that my life is so comfortable with the world's problems looming ever around us.

Only one watermelon plop this year

First big watermelon plop of the season was in the middle of a eight lanes at a divided highway intersection. Usually they are along the side of the road. Crimson red with firm green rind that will be only a memory in a day with the hot sun.

Today was a beautiful day. I drove by fields of deep, undulating green leaves of soybeans. Row farmers grow at least three if not four crops each year. Winter months are used for winter wheat. Then corn, vegetables, sorghum  canola followed by a crop of soybeans. Peanuts and cotton are grown next and what do you know, it is time to put wheat in again.

My goal was to keep a video and picture file of wildflowers on parade. Well, that has petered out. But I am charging the batteries to my cameras.

I've been reading a fascinating book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard. Gliding from topic to topic in a conversational style, you find yourself riveted and "say what" when he slams the region you are from with the facts. In 300 pages, he sums the nature of the United States underlying passions. A history that is withered in summation is surprisingly vivid and meaningful. My family lines date back to the 1600's so I can see many of the regions in my family's tree and stories.

A great read! I would find myself quickly reading a paragraph at occasionally long red lights. Hell no, I don't read when I drive. Even though I would like a gadget that would read a paper bound book. I like the feel of a paper book. My eyes aren't so tired from reading a kindle or computer.

I've been slow to post. Another broken laptop. This one will last a while. It has a crappy plastic feel to it's narrow plastic keys. I have a desktop that I don't connect to the internet and then a blabbermouth which is what I call my laptop. Ready to pounce or lurk on social media. Take care.

Sleeping in the Trees

Saturday night was incredibly exciting at my house. Instead of the history channel once more supposing how aliens were behind ancient history, they had a program about Benjamin Franklin. I mean this old gal knows how to roll.

Add to that a surf over the internet to read about his son and descendants and I find myself looking up ancient history of my dad's family. I always start with Big John McDuffie who was my great great grandfather. He was born February 22, 1822.  My grandmother was born January 1888. My dad was was born December 4, 1925. My grandfather was born around 1867. I know he died on May 6, 1944 and is buried in the Marietta Veteran Cemetery. His name was Benjamin Franklin Bennett.

I've had scant knowledge of his family. I know those Bennetts came out of Morgan County Georgia.

What really piqued my interest was Big John's wife's history. Usually women are a dead end in history. She was a Stephen's before she married. Her family dated backed to Massachusetts with one ancestor Stephen Hall born in 1628. What was cool was I could see where the family dated back to the Norman conquest of England. Pretty distant relations I know.

I could not sleep with the realization that the stories of settling in Georgia I heard from my father could have been the stories of the original English settlers in Massachusetts.

The main story I remember is the first night something scared the animals the first night they came. The men found what was scaring the animals and it was a panther. The first building they built was a barn for the animals and they slept in the trees for safety.

Snakes Stay Away Please.

I walked out into the garage talking on a cellphone. I wanted to not see what I saw. Pretend it was not there. A rattlesnake was stretched across some steps with it's head peering into the garage. Then it moved in underneath the lawnmower I had in the corner.

I brake for snakes. I appreciate a kingsnake I see close to my house. I will kill a rattlesnake in my garage. Rattlesnake venom is difficult. I had a dog to die from a rattlesnake bite. She was in such bad shape when we got to the emergency vet, I had her put down. When I buried her, she sounded like a bag of water.

Dialing 911, I knew I needed help. I went into the house and told my family not to come outside. Officer Bishop came from the Peach County Sheriff Department. The snake had gone under a lawnmower. I had moved so much trash out of the garage to clear a path.

Basically we swept the snake out of the garage. I had a large push broom and basically shoved it clear of the house and garage. The officer loaded a shotgun to shoot the snake but it was too close to the house. Walking around the car, not ten seconds later, the snake had vanished.

I was relieved. I did not want to kill it but I knew better than let a large rattler take up homestead in my garage. Their venom is very difficult to survive from. Of course I need to put a snake trap in my garage or nearby for safety's sake. Ei Yi Yi, too much thinking I fear.

Anyway, I got paranoid the snake got in the car. Long story short, I put my mom's cellphone on top of the car and opened doors to look for a snake. Carefully, I cranked. I know illogic is ruling. I back up and drive down the driveway, turn left and drive about one mile down the road and then drive back.

Returning, I couldn't find the phone. I did throw out junk from the garage. Turned the garbage upside down to look through the garbage. Because my mom loves her phone, I went to the store and purchased her another one. When I came to the end of my driveway, I saw a piece of the cellphone. I picked up most of the pieces. The SIMs card was in good shape.

All is well that ends well. I just don't want another snake to stop by.

Training a dog

Little BoDuke had a head cold. It got worse during the day and I stopped at the vets before coming home after picking my brother up. Duke was getting sicker and sicker as we drove. My little nine pound bruiser could be in a health crisis if I did not act.

It was a head cold. He looked good. The vet examined him outside. He did not allow any coughing and sneezing in the vet office. Infection control is taken seriously. I had two East German house guests before the fall of the Berlin Wall. They went to the vet with me and an injured pet. I remember they said the vet's office was better than some facilities for humans.

On second thought, that could be true in this country too.

The Ebola virus is wreaking havoc in West Africa. We have been blessed in this country. I have been feeling we are a privileged people. With war in the middle East, random murders of ethnic Arabs in Mali, a civil war in the Ukraine, children leaving central America to stand at our borders for help, we live a sheltered life in the United States. We just have to worry about the antisocial elements of our society.

The children tear at my heart. I know this is not practical but it is a shame all of us without children can't just drive by and pick up as many as we can house, feed and live happily ever after.

This doesn't have much to do with dog training. It is just that I had an observation which is a big step above a conspiracy theory based on my experience with dogs. If the dog likes something, they are trained and will remind you if you forget.

BoDuke was so miserable coughing, he curled up on me in the middle of the night. I petted him and he seemed to get some relief. Last night before I went to sleep, he came for his curl and special pets. The head cold was a one day thing and gone.

A political commercial came on. I thought about how the Republicans are going to sue the President. -Fundraising-. If they can get their base fired up, more money will be donated.

With the deep pockets of the Koch brothers, Shelton Adelson and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, I was surprised the Republicans had to raise that much money. Michael Bloomberg and George Soros have filled the democratic coffers. Now why are these guys emailing me to chip in $5.

Link to billionaire donors = Did you know many billionaires donate to PACs and you never see their names on donor lists.

So when the political commercials make you crazy this fall. Remember, you are part of the problem if you sent money.